


Snows I thru III

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 11:54:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Alex does some thinking.





	Snows I thru III

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Snows by Te

Snows  
by Te  
12/98  
Disclaimers: No one here belongs to me, but I love my illusions.  
Spoilers: Hmm... none really. Say FTF just to be safe.  
Ratings Note: R for language and hints of sex.  
Summary: Alex does some thinking.   
Author's Note: Sometimes I wonder how many times I can get away with having a "summary" like that. Anyway, this was inspired by a poem by Spenderbender, included at the end.  
Acknowledgments: To Sister Blue, for making the shadows fascinating. To Rae, for fine audiencing, and to Ladonna for her usual marvy beta. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Snows  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I was young, I would sit in the back seat of Papa's soft, quiet sedan and watch the trees roll by as he drove to mysterious appointment after mysterious appointment.

It was always trees. Though we lived in the suburbs, the meetings were always in the empty places. It was easy to think that anyone, anything at all could live in those woods.... even after I'd realized that there was nothing behind those thick, green lines but the homes of the rich and hermitic.

I was perhaps eleven or so, and my greatest wish was to live in those houses, if only so that I could be there when whatever strange, marvelous things came out in the bright, clean moonlight. 

The strange was always treasured, for my childhood was very normal. Our home was never louder than the expensive engine of the sedan, our meals never jittered with broken crockery or the sound of siblings.

I was an only child, and I was taught to be respectful, to emulate my parents in all ways. Our home was as any home should be, I think, though I was luckier than most.

Not every child gets to learn at his father's side, after all. 

Not just anyone is given a mother who was as loving and conscientious as my own. 

Some of my business associates only learned to use and maintain their weapons after some disaster -- my father put the gun in my hand himself when I was a child, and carefully helped me to hold and care for it as if it was my own limb.

My mother never let a day pass without helping me with my language and performance abilities. Smiling and hugging me when I had learned to lie to her in my third language, letting me bake with her, letting me lick the spoon.

It was always calm and quiet, and I never doubted my place. Never.

I was a lucky child, and, like all lucky children, I wanted more. Greedy and ungrateful, I searched our library for fantasies of conflict and chaos. I would darken the room to the point where there was *almost* insufficient light to read by, and pretend the shadows hid creatures who wanted my life and soul. That the sweet smell of fresh bread masked other, darker scents.

It was indulgent, foolish. Mama and Papa never brought their work home.

But I was young, and such things were allowed with a smile and quiet laughter. Papa believed that a good imagination was the clearest sign of an adaptable mind -- something I would need. 

And when the winters came, I was grateful, for the snows would blanket the hills, obscuring, misleading. For a few months every year I could believe the wonders of the other world were hidden from my eyes by the *world's* nature, and not my own. 

I wasn't unworthy of the sights, simply unpracticed in their hunt.

I always knew that someday I'd learn to squint my eyes just *so*, and be pulled into the worlds of my imagining. I would miss my parents, but the pain would make me stronger, and Papa would be proud of me for the sacrifice. 

And the snows would eventually hide me, too. 

The first time I saw a wolf I was 15, and we were in the old country for Mama's work. Papa and I didn't see her very often, and so we would take supplies and the dogs deep into the ancestral forests to hunt the deer and the bear. The former would be given to the villagers after Papa had dressed and cleaned the carcasses, the latter would line our clothes, floors, and walls in the bitterness of deep Russian winter.

It was the happiest time of my life. 

It was as though my fantasies had come true. I had the freedom to roam for miles in the clear darkness of seemingly endless night, knowing that around any bend could lurk a maddened creature that could tear me apart with one swipe of its paw.

And I also knew that, whenever I chose, I could return to the dacha and share tea and stories with my father. 

The warmth was always sweeter after a time away, and in my youth... in my youth I would treasure it as deeply as I knew how to do, and run from it as soon as I'd squeezed out every last precious gem of normality.

I wanted it to be just as sweet when I returned again, you see.

The daughter of the local handyman found me pleasing to the eye, and would follow me to an abandoned shed just outside her village some of the nights I roamed. Her hair was thick and dark, falling to the sides of a heart-shaped face, her eyes perfect black in moonlight. I would take her, and send her back to her father and home, knowing she thought herself wild for the transgression. Knowing she'd never follow me any deeper. 

I treasured my petty tragedies, as well.

After I had sent her away, I would continue the night's hunt, occasionally brushing trees with my hands. Her scent lingered on them, and I told myself that someday I'd be able to find my way home by that alone, should I ever become truly lost.

It was one of those nights that I saw the wolf. I'd been standing stock-still at one of my marked trees, teaching myself to tease the scents of pine and bark away from that of my lovely peasant's sex, eyes closed and reaching with all that I was for the ephemera of adolescent lust.

All of a sudden, a deep breath left me awash with wildness, aggression and hunger. I opened my eyes slowly. Twenty metres away stood the wolf, fur thick and grey, matted with blood that may or may not have been its own. The sharpness of the scent made the thing definitely male, and its eyes were amber viewed through a heavy green glass. He stared at me, tongue lolling, and I carefully avoided direct eye contact. I had been foolish -- my rifle was slung over my back and the chances of it getting stuck in my hood if I tried to free it were too high. A false move would leave me staining the snow, and I knew I would not live long enough to scream for help. 

An endless stretch of time, and I felt my nose and ears begin to ache with the cold, and my eyes itched to meet the vastly inhuman stare of the wolf, but I just stood there, and waited.

A crunch of paw sinking through the thin ice crust.

He was closer.

Another.

I knew -- *knew* -- that I would die, and desperately tried to force my being to Mama, in her lab, for I had not seen her in days.

And then, in the distance, a brief and purposeful chorus of howls. My animal companion took another step toward me and growled. He was being called home before prey could be properly killed and devoured. I could understand the anger.

Another chorus and he raised his head to me, compelling a shared glance. His eyes burned in the pale light of the gibbous moon, and his breath steamed. It was an acknowledgement. I would be safe from him this night, but if we ever were to meet again...

I swallowed shamelessly as he turned and bounded to the North, felt my knees knock for a spare few moments of rational fear. And then... and then I *wanted*. I had escaped death, yes, and the song of adrenaline in my blood as natural as any animal's, but...

But I had shamed myself as hunter, allowed my confidence to turn me into prey. Suddenly, it was clear. The wonders, the forest beasts had hidden themselves from me because I *was* unworthy, and I vowed it would never happen again.

My sweet, comfortable life had softened me, perhaps irrevocably. I had the skills, I had the knowledge... but I lacked the *instinct*. I thought of my reflection in the mirror, and knew that my eyes had never burned like those of the wolf. I knew that the snows would never swallow me in shadow and misty runs. Not like that.

And when, some three weeks later, I returned home from another night's roaming to find our dacha stripped of life and family, I was grateful. I knew that whoever came for me would set me on the proper path.

It turned out to be a man who appeared to be some ten years older than my father, but who moved like the wolf. I was to call him 'sir,' and I was 18 before I was allowed to call him by his favored name -- Peskow. 

I don't think he taught me anything my parents couldn't have taught, but his methods were vastly different. It was from him that I learned how lucky I had been. It was from him that I learned how different I was from other children. They were the prey, or perhaps the low members of the pack. 

I was to be a leader. 

He was hard, and he was cold, and he was all I had of family after being stripped of my name and heritage. In the days of chill and broken rest, I counted myself superior -- for I had known enough to treasure the times I'd had as a child, and I never, never allowed myself to forget the scent of Mama's sugared breads. 

I learned my place, and Peskow made absolutely sure I learned to loathe it, as well. And while my inability to settle under the leash has earned me more scars than triumphs, it has also guaranteed that I will never be anyone but myself.

It would be wrong not to be grateful for that, and so I toast his shadowy self, and will never kill him as he wishes me to do -- it would mock all his work to make me an individual. No, I will use him until that day his reflexes crumble at precisely the wrong moment, and he is nothing more impressive than an old man who died more interestingly than most. I think he would appreciate the quiet indignity of it. 

And if he doesn't... well, he'll be dead. He can argue with me in whatever passes for the afterlife of people like us. 

When I was handed off to Peskow's masters I received nothing more useful than an extended civics lesson. I was to be a Patriot, I was to go back to America -- they tried to make sure that I would never think of it as home again -- and infiltrate the governments behind the governments. And make my reports. 

It was shockingly simple to get inside. I not only had the skills, but Peskow had been very careful to keep my face free of disfiguring marks. And Mama had been assiduous in making sure I developed precisely that air of amoral innocence that makes men such as those I have worked for ache with that brand of intellectual lust best suited to Victorian drawing rooms. 

I fell in love with America again, of course. Few other countries instill such a massive love and need for personal power in their youth. Here, even among the people that were supposed to *know* better, the constant struggle to be first among equals was always screwing *something* up. I learned early to show perfect loyalty to none, because, though it left me untrusted by all, it also left me relatively safe from the periodic purges the silly old men indulged in. 

Relatively. 

In the way of these men, it made perfect sense that I would be sent to perform some strange act of destruction on Mulder. Shooting or discrediting him would disrupt the power balance dangerously. It was more... fair... to simply try to drive him crazy with guilt, self-doubt, and possibly lust. My Russian employers were never sure whether to appreciate the complexity of the move or just make the long-delayed takeover bid sooner because the stupidity of the Americans demanded it. 

Sometimes I can't help but believe that Peskow went overboard in his lessons on individuality. I've never had a master in whom I could have perfect faith even if I'd *wanted* to. 

Then again, I know my idealization of the dark places must have showed. Peskow felt that a person who believed in anything at all could never be trusted to keep himself free of emotional entanglement. And he was right. 

It was immediately obvious that Mulder shared both my distrust of authority and my desperation to people the shadows with the death of the mundane. It was immediately obvious that I could be precisely the person to share his life. I tailored myself away from the adoring greenhorn the old men wanted as much I could. I showed myself willing to be led astray, as opposed to simply offering an example of his long-since-corrupted youth. 

I was supposed to make him long for his own false innocence, and so drive himself mad. Instead, I tried to seduce him into taking me under his wing, making me into the wild, powerful thing he so clearly longed to be. 

If there's one lesson learned with time, it is that you never stop being younger than you think you are. That is, I may have been a grown man, but I was still foolish. My plans would've meshed neatly enough with those of the old men --the end result would be Mulder, leaving his career to show me his own snowlands -- but the old men were foolish enough to toy with their own works. 

When Mama taught me how to cook, she taught me the importance of leaving the food to prepare itself after a time. It only took one painfully over-spiced dish for the lesson to drive itself home. These men... these men know no subtlety. My mother would have made ten of them -- and would not have stinted at wiping them from the face of the earth. She would not have settled for their underlings. 

But it was left to me to try and finish their hopeless little jobs, and when the plans, of course, failed, it was always I who took the brunt of the punishment. There comes a time when one has to wonder just how much suffering one actually needs...

It was almost a relief to find myself under the Brit. He had always been the most rational of the bunch, gaining a reputation for a distinct lack of resolve simply because he didn't occasionally froth at the mouth and kill off his rivals' employees. He was, of course, the one the Russians distrusted the most, and the irony... Well, the vaccine I stole from them -- burning my old bridges -- was what found me in his employ. 

That distrust meant he was the one they wanted information on the most, though.... It's entirely possible that I'll be able to worm my way back on the inside with some choice tidbits from his segment of the organization. 

Or it would've been possible if he wasn't so decidedly *dead*. 

As annoying as it is to keep track of the people and governments I have some influence with, it's just painful to lose an alliance forever. I'll find a way back into their good graces, somehow. 

Perhaps after I solidify my own place. I will train the smoker's prodigal for him, and kill him when the project inevitably fails. They've never seen me be brutal with a protege before. I will impress them with my ruthlessness, where circumstances had made me appear weak before. 

I will. 

But it isn't time for that yet, and my life is my own. 

Or close enough to it as to make no difference. 

It suits me to continue the Brit's attempts to make Mulder an ally of business. I know he wants more of me, if not necessarily what *I* want him to want. I give him hints of tiny government corruptions to pique his interest, I whisper through his cell phone and thrill to hear him pause at the sound of my voice. 

I know he wouldn't be averse to my touch -- it's just a matter of enticing him to follow me to the edge of my woods... I know he wouldn't stop there. I know he has no need to prove himself wild. And maybe, after a time, he will see my eyes in contrast with the snows.

His gun isn't fast enough to stop me.

There is no pack that can call me away from pouncing on him and making him mine.

And then... and then I'll tell him what *really* lurks in the shadows. 

And perhaps I won't have to scramble so hard to maintain this life of mine. 

Or perhaps he'll just make the struggle entertaining again.

All this to justify another night of lingering outside his home... it will be all right so long as I can trust in my prey to always return.

A good hunter is thorough.

A good hunter is patient.

And if I squint my eyes just so, I am again surrounded by trees, bothered by no sound but my own breathing and the illusory hints of Mulder's presence.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~

Not a creature  
of habit, I know besides   
   occasionally   
dropping by when you're out  
    (now you know where those orphan socks  
     and your favorite sweatshirt were abducted to)  
I like it random, unpredictable  
  and underneath  
    admit it  
       you do too

no profile no paper trail no computer  
  not even a mouse  
to my name  
    IF that's my real name (sorry, couldn't resist)

it's been a year or better  
   or worse  
and I've seen bombings  
  quiet hits  
      cut brakelines  
 and biowarfare that left nothing behind  
   except for something in a bathtub  
       like a bowl full of jelly  
and in our own way we follow parallel paths

and to all  
   accounts on my 'salary'   
I can't exactly afford  
  cufflinks or oxford pinpoints  
     or even a cheap ring  
    inscribed 'remember'  
but   
  I can offer you this   
    in the falling snow  
know that I'm out there  
     catch me if you can

        -- 

 

* * *

 

Snows II: Running  
by Te  
1/99  
Disclaimers: They don't belong to me, and I apologize for trespassing. Gimme a minute to repack the picnic basket and I'll be on my way.  
Spoilers: None.  
Ratings Note: R for some rough language and implied m/m.  
Summary: Mulder has been dreaming.  
Author's Notes: This one owes quite a bit to Viridian's marvelous "Under." Read it now. And this is a direct sequel to "Snows," though I'm not sure it's necessary to read that one first.   
Acknowledgments: To Sister Blue for knowing the value of a good catch. To Laura for... a lot. <g> To Dawn Sharon for fine audiencing and many helpful suggestions, and to Ladonna for fine beta. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Snows II: Running  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've seen him watching me. 

He has to know. Hell, our eyes have even met once or twice.

Four times, actually. The first was in some unmapped town in Nebraska. The sort of town that makes you think "village" and start looking for the town well and stoning grounds.

He shouldn't have been there. Plaid and denim aside, everything about Alex screams "outsider" in such a place. Or maybe it's just the fact that I was staring at him myself. Waiting.

He's been a regular informant for some months now, and I've been trained to consider his presence a prelude to a hint, a clue, something. 

That's not precisely true, though. He's never *showed* himself when he was handing off information. Not since the first time. Or the first time I knew it was him. Or the first time he didn't just let me beat him. Something.

It's always an envelope in my paper at those times, and sometimes there's an accompanying phone call. The first time he called me it was because I was taking too long to follow up. I've since resisted the urge to hold on to his scraps in the hope of more... He either calls or he doesn't.

Just a few words, nothing more insinuating than his own voice, nothing more satisfying than his own dubious confirmation of a list of numbers or addresses.

And not even that when I see him.

The last time was just last night. The streetlights were bouncing off the day's snowfall, and the entire world seemed strangely orange. It was lighting my apartment, and I wanted to sleep. I went to the window to pull down the shade, and there he was, sitting on the hood of his car. Crosslegged and blank-faced. Too much. It was after three a.m., and thus, perhaps, safe, but...

He's not supposed to be so *obviously* hallucinatory.

It's only natural that I'd feel him in every shadow. We've had too much history for this latest game of his not to make me even more paranoid. But he's not supposed to *really* be there. When I looked again, he was still there. He'd even shifted a little, perhaps so I could be *sure* I wasn't... fantasizing. 

When I went to sleep, I dreamed of him.

I've always felt it was a cheat to dream something that really *was* on your mind just before you went to bed --why can't I ever do it on purpose? -- but there it was. 

In the dream, I'm running through city streets, and the snow has drifted. It's up to my knees in places. There are no other footprints, no sound but my own breath and the heavy winter silence. The city is empty. 

The future, then.

I look down, and even though I'm wearing nothing but old sweats, I'm not cold. And then, of course, I'm cold. It's an almost seamless change from casual run to slow torture and impending frostbite. Almost. I couldn't see my breath before, and now I can. 

It blocks out the scenery with each puff, just slightly too thick to be real. I never stop running. 

I ask myself what I'm running from, and then I hear the footsteps behind me. I turn, and it is, of course, Alex. 

He's perfectly realized, finely rendered in the same padded jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots I just saw him in. But he's not running, just moving after me, like I'm towing a statue on a rolling platform. 

And then I *am* towing him, and even though his expression is no blanker than the one I just saw, I wake up shuddering. 

I get up, write a report, and go for a run. My first clue that this will be a less than restful night is that my apartment suddenly leads directly out into woods. 

I curse myself for not noticing that I couldn't see a word I'd written in the -- brilliant, of course -- report, but it fades fast. I'm happy I'm wearing shoes this time. 

The woods are familiar. I look up and it's the thick canopy of the rainforest, and the sun is strained darkly through the green. But the snow is still up to my knees, and when I look up again it's New England evergreens at night. It's always soothing to have things match up within a dream.

And there are Alexes everywhere. 

Sitting calmly on a tree stump, leaning against nothing at all... waiting for me to run up and chase him. I wait until I get one that smirks at me before I leave my chosen path. 

But he doesn't run, just stands there and waits for me to get to him, which I do, much too quickly. I push at him and he looks at me like I'm insane for a moment before shrugging awkwardly and running off with a small sigh.

This is where I want to wake up shuddering again, but instead I just run. Bogged down here by a drift, tripping over a tree root there. 

It begins to snow again, and I quickly lose Alex in the stinging wind and darkness. The moon has been quite accurately hidden by slate clouds. I stop to catch my breath against a tree that's only too smooth for the space of a heartbeat and there's Alex again, some fifteen yards away. Revealed by an obliging gust, or perhaps just by his own obliging self.

It continues that way for a long while, and I feel myself running easier. I know I'm falling into a deeper sleep, but there's nothing I can do. Alex, of course, takes advantage by refusing to run any further. I crash into him, and for a moment I'm passing *through* him into something like freedom... But the image is too much somehow, and I am slapped back into my ruthless re-creation of reality, and to the ground. 

Alex settles beside me and sighs again.

"You could just let the real you catch me some time. You're gonna be exhausted when you wake up."

I'm looking up into the sky, and I'm glad I've never seen snow this beautiful before. It's crystalline, soft and gently painful -- I would have frozen to death years ago. "Why do *I* have to do all the work?" 

"This *is* just a dream."

"But it's an obvious echo of my life."

"Our lives."

"You're not really here."

"You want me to be."

"Fine. So let's pretend you're really you, Alex. Tell me why you're screwing with me?"

"Everything I say will just be your own analyses of the situation."

"Humor me."

"If I was the real me, I'd probably hit you."

"No you wouldn't. Alex never hits me unless I hit him first. He's barely even threatened me."

Alex snickers. "You're proving my point, you know."

I glower at the sky, and it stops snowing until my face evens out again. "OK, you're not Alex. Just tell me my latest theory on why Alex won't come get me, once and for all."

"He knows you'd lay back and take it, but believes you would instantly deny it. He would gain power by being the... taken... one."

"No, that's the *old* theory. He loves me, and is afraid I'll reject him."

"Yes, but that's your Muldertheory. I assumed you wanted your Alextheory."

At that point, it was finally too confusing to be a dream, and I woke up.

At least, I'm pretty sure I did. The problem with those nested dreams is that you're never sure you're awake when you *do* wake up. I know from experience that I'll have this vague feeling of paranoia until something comes along to distract me. 

Well, more paranoia. It used to be enough to *tell* someone about the dream-within-a-dream, but then I started dreaming that I'd told someone about the dream, etc.

If nothing else, nights like these at least prove that I *do* trust myself. It feels good to realize that I usually have some measure confidence in my ability to sift dream from reality, even if reality itself is often ephemeral.

Some small measure. 

I'm writing this down, though, and I don't think my brain is so advanced that I'd still be able to read these words if I was really asleep. 

Then again, I plan on destroying this record immediately after I'm done, so it's entirely possible that I'll be right back where I started. 

Well, not quite. I looked outside, and Alex is gone. For now. For now?

If I knew what was going on in his head, I could plan some appropriate course of action. I think I know, but I can't trust. None of my other profiles changed this often. Part of me thinks Alex is absolutely positive he's being crystal-clear. "Here I am, Mulder..."

Part of me *knows* Alex knows that he's doing an excellent job on me. It's what he was trained for...

Part of me just wants to be able to shoot him, another points out that it would be profoundly stupid to shoot an informant, another points out that that's not the *real* reason I can't shoot him, another thinks I should've gone back to bed an hour ago.

It all adds up to the idea that I'm too close to the subject to profile effectively, and should report my unfitness to the SAC immediately and take a vacation some place warm.

Or at least tell Scully precisely who has been keeping me up nights working on the wrong assignments and let her arrest him.

He's looking at me like I'm insane again. I can see him. 

But he's not really here.

I want to resolve to catch hold of him and *make* him tell me what's going on. Or catch hold of him and figure it out for myself. But I feel as though making that sort of resolution *guarantees* I'll never see him again. Not in such a convenient way, at least.

Perhaps he's only so eager to be caught in my dreams. Perhaps this is only particularly lazy surveillance, or a warning of surveillance to come. Perhaps if I ever reach out for him he'll disappear in a spangle of dark glitter.

Or simply prove himself a statue tethered to my waist. 

It's a terrifying thought. Alex could be a perfectly mundane Krycek of a thug, mooning over something he can't have for the sole reason that it's... something he can't have.

Reason enough to catch him next time, cure myself instantly of this idiotic dream. Show it to be nothing but banal lust on his part and childish fantasy on my own, and thus be free. 

Only I don't think I want to be free at all.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~

 

* * *

 

Snows III: Beasts  
by Te  
1/99  
Disclaimers: They continue to not belong to me.  
Spoilers: None.  
Ratings Note: R for language, implied m/m interaction.  
Summary: Mulder goes for a run.   
Author's Notes: Something about this winter has a hold on me. In chronological order:  
    "Snows"  
    "Snows II: Running"  
    "Snows III: Beasts"  
This takes place the morning after "Running," or maybe the morning after that. I'd love it if you read all of my stories, but I think only the second is remotely necessary for this one.   
Acknowledgments: To Alicia for fine audiencing in the face of MolassesFingers!Te, to Sister Blue for knowing when to blow off work, to Viridian for many helpful suggestions, and to Ladonna for fine beta. Also to Nonie for eagle eyes...

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Snows III: Beasts  
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The snowplow had been sitting outside Mulder's apartment building for at least half an hour.

The deep growl of the engine was tolerable, almost soothing. The slow, relentless "beep... beep... beep" was not. The warning lights flashing across his ceiling brought back uncomfortable memories of certain clubs he'd frequented back in London. 

It was five-fourteen a.m., and Mulder was up for the day.

He stayed on the couch for another ten minutes, though. The memories might have been slightly uncomfortable, but they suited the pre-dawn darkness perfectly. Mulder had always been able to appreciate the confusion of winter, the way the sky provided no real cues for gauging the time. 

There was a certain beauty to the ambiguity, a sense that, despite the world's schedules, time really *was* an illusion the vast majority had agreed to believe in.

Aesthetics settled, Mulder dressed for his run -- an activity which involved nothing more complex than throwing sneakers over his socks and adding two more shirts --kicked the morning paper into the house, and set off. 

He had to resist the urge to keep his eyes shut for the first few steps. It seemed almost *fated* that his hall would have disappeared for the forests of his dreams, and it was too early in the morning to face that sort of thing head on. 

Luckily, there was no one in the hall but the eleven year old from upstairs, patiently replacing today's newspapers for Apartment 47 with those of the week before. It had been going on for months, and, considering the often altered states of 47's residents, it could very well go on forever.

"How long is forever, kid?"

"Fuck you."

Mulder nodded and took the stairs down, idly considering how "fuck you," might be tweaked to a properly zen-like answer. It was the sort of thing that made the morning stretches easy and fast.

In the lobby he greedily took several deep breaths of the last warm air he planned on encountering for at least half an hour. A few more stretching exercises and then Mulder was out the door, eyes catching once on the newly installed tower of post boxes in the center of the lobby. Flash of mellowed brass at the corner of his eye and then the street was his. 

As tends to happen, the snowplow had since moved on to invade the dreams of other hapless Alexandria residents, leaving Mulder in that thick mockery of encroaching dawn. 

To his left, the ice-rocky piles of the plow's passage, crumbling remnants of walls never built. To his right there were doors opening. Too many doors. Neighbors deciding it was better to get ready early for work on a day like this, then. Mulder chose left, got on the cleared, salted street and took off.

The first pounding strides of feet to pavement were always jarring to him. The sound, the shocks -- they made running such a *committed* action. These first few moments were what woke him up in the morning, not matter what anyone said about rhythms and comfort level.

The jar is the alarm. The rest a simple lingering before preparing yourself for the day for real. The equivalent of wallowing in hazy images of Ian and the contents of the bottle on the cord around his throat and the way he'd taken you twice before letting you back out onto the dance floor....

And Mulder remembered those dances well. The motions were often silly and contrived, but under the lights, moving with the tide of young, attractive bodies ever closer to the mythical summoning.... Some destination to give the clubs reason to exist. 

In the end, though, he'd landed no place more mystical than the black-splashed wood of the bar, hand out for another pint. 

And memories like these, extended, nearly hallucinatory things, worked like nothing else to find Mulder his rhythm. His legs had grown youthful again, and the world flew past to either side of him. Snow-crumbles to the right, tall, straight complexes to the left... It gave a curious feeling of running along the edge of something major. A part of him was nearly positive that one false move either way would get him fried crispy by some hidden, booby-trapped borderline.

Mulder was willing to accept the theory that he ought to sleep more. He was also willing to accept the fact that the appearance of bleary-eyed commuters may have caused his mind to interpret "unsafe" in new and different ways. Mulder got back on the sidewalk, trying not to think about how all the frozen, wet, and cold would feel on his ass if he took a spill. 

But his legs were *singing* to him, a level of energy he'd come to think fanciful since he hadn't had it for so long. Mulder checked his watch -- plenty of time for this to be a 10K morning. He smiled at the elderly, slightly hunched woman waiting for her dog to finish its business, and the one he received in return was of that shade of brilliance that curses you roundly for having smiled so rarely in the past.

The day was looking good, in all honesty, and the semi he was packing thanks to thoughts of Ian only added to the experience. A little discomfort, an ache to counterpoint the smooth, nearly oiled motion of his legs.

And all was well until a hand grabbed him by the back of the neck, yanked him into an alley, and slammed him --chest first, thankfully -- into a brick wall. 

Mulder had just enough time to remember he only had his throwaway before he was spun around again. 

Alex. Of course.

"What the fuck do you want, Krycek?"

The other man's expression was only a dreamy smile, distressing contrast to the twist and flex of restrained muscle Mulder could still feel along the side of his neck.

"Krycek -- Fuck. Just give me what you have and make yourself scarce again. Maybe pick up some smoke balls. They'd add some dazzle to your tired performances."

"You're sounding pretty worn yourself, Mulder. How are you sleeping these days?"

No smirk in the rough tone, but only the barest hint of something that could be considered concern. The man seemed... calm... and it was disturbing. Mulder wanted a reaction. 

Mulder wanted to take this somewhere warm... The only responsible thing. Show himself, once and for all, that the only thing beneath that leather was flesh, and the only thing beneath the flesh was the banal cavern of the putatively soulless. 

"What do you have for me, Krycek? Nothing? Good, let me go."

Mulder brought a hand up to pry Alex's own from his neck, and the contact was impossibly powerful. It *had* been a long time since they'd touched in any way. The last had been that damned kiss, while this... this subtle brush of his own chilled fingers against Alex's was rapidly distracting him. 

"Hold on, hold on, I *do* have something for you. Left inside pocket of the jacket. Thin manila packet. If you touch anything else in there, you'll regret it."

"Why the change in our spy games, Krycek?"

A genuine smile, if a brief one. "I felt like it today."

Mulder desperately wanted to be able to read anything in that cheer resembling mockery. If Alex would only say "didn't you *want* to see me more this way...?" Well, if he'd say that Mulder could do anything at all...

Mulder reached in and retrieved the envelope, fingers skittering close to the holster more by instinct than design. And then Alex's hand was off his throat, pushing him hard against the wall for a brief knock, and grabbing his wrist. Still under the jacket.

Warm there, solid heat. Mulder looked up just in time to see the anger drift to something... sweeter. 

//Ask me to touch you....//

"Mulder.... Look up."

Mulder's trapped hand clenched into a fist as he held the other man's stare, but Alex didn't let go. Just nodded smilingly toward the sky in a way that made Mulder want to check for large, cartoon-style X'es beneath his feet. He resisted the urge, though, and looked up.

It was snowing again. Lightly now. It would barely leave a dusting. Mulder shook his head and started to look back down. "What is this, Kry--'

But that was as far as he got. Alex was blinking a tiny snowflake out of his eyelashes, and, when he was done, he caught Mulder's eyes again and held them with his own. Bright eyes, speaking of a mood that must have been nearly preternatural in its chipperness. 

It would've been enough to drag the encounter firmly back into the surreal, but the snow in Alex's hair was bright dust in dark spikes, melting too slow. Alex was being graced with the most transient of gifts -- soft winter aging, and it only made him more beautiful. 

It didn't take long for Alex to follow the run of his thoughts, and the hand around Mulder's wrist loosened.

"Do you want to kiss me, Mulder?"

He found himself nodding and moving closer, nape and spine tingling, muscles in constant twitch beneath the surface. Mulder was waiting for something -- a harsh laugh, a gunshot, his own sanity -- to take this away from him. It had to. 

Instead, there was nothing stopping his progress but Alex's own mouth. Surprisingly soft, but his lips were cool. They'd been outside too long. And that was the last coherent thought for the moment as Alex opened his mouth beneath Mulder's and let him in.

Mulder was hungry for this kiss and it was given, Alex's mouth was his, a new home for his tongue, warm and wet and the taste was nothing like he'd imagined, but still wonderful. Acid with the other man's apprehension. And his tongue was a careful predator, easing its way around Mulder's own, breaking the kiss so Alex could lick a flat line over one lip, then the other. 

And then Alex pulled back to look at Mulder, and the color had risen high in his cheeks. And Mulder realized that, at some point, he'd wrapped both arms around the other man.... He didn't want to let go. 

If he was tethered to Alex, then it was a connection he wanted badly, and he wanted to drag the man miles behind him. Or at least to his apartment. Because Alex was no statue, living flesh under his hands and he still wasn't letting go. 

Finally, Alex moved closer again, burying his face in Mulder's throat in a manner that birthed awareness. All of Mulder wanted to feel all of Alex, but he settled for curving his hand against the back of Alex's head and pulling him in tighter.

Making him moan against Mulder's quickly warming skin.

Alex's hand was steady at Mulder's waist, squeezing whenever his laps and suckling made Mulder cry out. 

Mulder let his head fall back against the wall, easing the lower half of his body a little closer to the heat he knew was waiting for him. The sky was crowded, blanked out with the storm clouds of a snow.

It was falling still, and Mulder wondered if Alex would make love to him here, in sight of nothing but their own chill grey shroud of morning.

But Alex was pulling off again, leaning in to kiss him once, just long enough for Mulder to realize how cold his own lips had become, before easing to a safe distance.

Mulder let his hands fall to his sides, resisting the painful need to wrap his arms around himself in acknowledgment of and comfort for the other man's absence.

"What now?"

"You have to go to work."

"And you?"

"I have to wait for you to come home from work."

"And then what, Alex?"

Alex just looked at him for a long moment, serious and measuring. Testing. "I want... so much."

The raw need in the other man's voice made him shiver. "There's nothing in this envelope, is there?"

Alex snickered briefly. "Menu for a Chinese restaurant..."

"Well, that's *useful*, I guess..."

"... in Oklahoma."

Mulder paused. "You grabbed me just to make sure I saw the snowfall?"

Wide smile. "Gotta keep you in touch with the important things, Mulder."

He was missing things here, and Mulder wasn't sure whether he *really* wanted to know everything --

"I want to show you--" 

Alex cut himself off by diving back in to kiss him again, harsh and needful, sucking Mulder's tongue before pulling away again, breathless.

"I... I'll come back, Mulder. I promise." 

And with that, he walked down the alley and disappeared, leaving Mulder to pant against the wall and wonder where his latest train of thought had derailed to.

It didn't matter. 

Another few minutes to catch his breath and stretch again and Mulder returned to the pavement, easing back onto one of the shorter routes. Enjoying the ache Alex had left behind.

Begging himself silently to let it be just as good as it felt. 

The low ceiling of clouds made the world a prison, but it was dangerous in the best of all possible ways. And utterly irresistible.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~


End file.
